Filthy Xenos Adventures in Space

"And I suppose you want to know where to find all these things Eldar. Surely you must realize that most of these objects will require a venture into Imperial space. A place where Eldar, Orks, and especially Necrons are not welcome."

"'We are aware of the dangers, but we think we can offer The Imperium very interesting incentives for working with us. For example, correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to have a passion for books on xenos. There is a Necron aboard my ship who would be more than willing to write down some of the more fascinating tales of his race. Think about it, you're very own, unique, original manuscript. All I'd want in exchange would be a chance to looks at some of the books in your collection.'"

Tristan asks if a charm test would be appropriate here.

[charm test is indeed appropriate]

She taps her fingers on the armrest appearing to contemplate your deal "I will admit I am tempted, I would ask to see the manuscript first."

"'The work will take several days to prepare. I propose this deal. We count the days it takes this necron to write. After you see that it is to your liking, you grant us access to your library for that number of days. I don't plan to stay on this port very long, so the necron would write no longer than five days. Is that acceptable?'"

As you finish speaking one of the cloes comes in through another door. You realize he's carrying Baravyns witchblade. Borges stands up and takes it from him "You know I hear that Eldar blades like these can only be used by psykers. I'd be willing to wager that I took the head of a very valuable member of your crew and you will have a very difficult time getting anywhere you would really like." She walks over to the you and puts the blade in between your faces, mere inches from your nose. "If you'd like I can give you someone to navigate the warp for you. What do you say? Are you really willing to make a deal with the person who made one of your species suffer so much? I'd bet that as I stabbed him with my kiss he experienced untold amounts of agony as every vein in his body was filled with spikes ripping and tearing him apart from the inside. Does that not anger you Captain?"

"I've said I'll be honest with you. So no, it does not anger me. It does however, make me unbearably sad. There's not many eldar left. Each one of us have lived hundreds or thousands of years. Watching one die... it's like seeing history tear before your eyes. I'm not angry with you captain, nor do I desire revenge. Regardless of what might have happened before, he challenged you to single combat and you accepted. I cannot blame you for the outcome.

Enough with the sob story, I understand you're very busy and don't have time for this. Your offer is very kind. As it happens, I have been studying navigation while confined to my bed, but if I've learned anything, it's that the forms of travel our races employ are not to be trifled with. What would you ask of me in return if I were to accept?'"

She grins a big toothy grin. Walking back to her chair she pauses before the servant who brought the sword to her. In a one quick motion she impales the sword through the clones chest causing blood to spurt all across the solid wood floor. With a quick fluorish she removes the blade and wipes the blood off on the sleeve of her jacket.

Pointing straight at the pool of blood forming she says "THAT! THAT IS WHAT I DEISRE!" In a much more calm tone she continues, "More specifically I desire blood money. Ill gotten gains or what have you. I help you, you help me. Everyone wins. I give you a means of reliable navigation, and you give me wealth, and lots of it. With the powers we can bring to bear entire subsectors are ripe for conquest and from the rivers of blood will be claimed respect and power. The Halo Stars belong to no one, despite what the Imperium claims, but I, I will carve my name into galactic history."

Pointing the witchblade at you "What say you captain? Will you work to conquest? If you prove your worth I'll give you and entire sub sector for all your Eldar friends to live in peacefully."

"'Truly this is offer is a great honor. Certainly working with you would be, and we eldar don't say this lightly, a once in a lifetime opportunity. Indeed, insofar as working with you helps us acquire the items on our list, I would be happy to. Certainly I am no stranger to conquest. I aspire to be a renowned leader of my race, much like you do. To that end, I think we could be powerful allies.'"

Borges looks over at one of the clones and says "YOU! Clean this up! I don't want the blood to stain the floor so hop to it!" Quickly and expediently three of the clones grab the corpse and another begins scrubbing the floor at her feet.

Sitting back in the chair she plays with the edge of the wichblade "Then I will send a means of navigation to your ship within the day. I'd be willing to bet that you don't have any means of communicating so I'll have an astropath go too. Who knows maybe you'll all get along. We'll discuss the details when you come back with that book and if I like it you may have access to my library. Now leave please, our business is concluded."

Dubshredda shrugs and leaves.

"Firsa bows courteously and takes her leave."

You are all escorted out of the ship and allowed to return to the Tanorum

"Back in Tanurom, Firsa collapses into her bed, still heavily wounded and exhausted from the day's stress. She calls for Aten, Dubshredda, and Zuensyr and relates to them the outcome of the meeting. Ready to be done talking, she looks to Dubshredda. 'So, what did you think of the nice lady?'"

Dubshredda is orkishly apathetic as he speaks: "Borgez got lotsa ambition. She too concerned wit 'umie problemz."

Aten arrives, already hard at work transferring his memories into a more presentable form. Before he speaks, Lae'orenar asks Desilco a question.

"In another role-playing game I once dabbled with, characters were able to take longer to do better on their checks. Can Aten take extra time writing his book to make it better?"

"Sure, every extra day will get you +10"

In that case, Aten speaks.

"Captain, I am pleased to see you have returned unharmed. I have begun work on the tome. How many days may I have to complete it? While I can certainly finish it quickly, any extra time will be greatly appreciated."

"'As lovely as this port has been to us so far, I'd rather not overstay our welcome. I told the captain I'd give you no more than five days, which should, if you please her, give us five days access to her library. Now, the if of 'if you please her' will be very important. At worst, she may have our heads. From what I've seen of Captain Borges and her abode, I'd say she is a woman who appreciates detail, but don't give her any flowery nonsense. If you can, relate the story to the Imperium and paint the humans in as positive a light as you can.'"

[Humans weren't a part of the war in heaven. The war in heaven ended when the dinosaurs went extinct]

"I will try, Captain, but it may be difficult. The War in Heaven raged 65 million years before the Imperium took its first breath. No humans participated in those terrible battles. Hmm, perhaps if I compared the righteousness and inherent justice of our struggle with those of the newborn Imperium..."

Aten continues mumbling to himself, deeply lost in thought.

"Oh wow, I really need to brush up on my necron history then" remarks Tristan. "Well, maybe it will be a stretch then, but I guess see if you can have Aten be a little creative. Hopefully Aten will know what's best."

"In the next few days, Firsa will spend most of her time recovering. Maybe if we find he a god damned doctor she could actually walk outside without being heavily freaking wounded! Will we get to make any more acquisition tests?"

Aten will spend the next five days working on his book, taking no time to sleep or rest. It's times like these that he's thankful for his necrodermis body.

Dubshredda relaxes in the ship.

After five days, Aten returns to the living. Despite his machine body, he is exhausted, emotionally and physically. For the past five days he has poured his memories out onto the pages of a dataslate. The final product rests in his hands, a monumental achievement. This book will go down in history as one of the greatest histories ever written. Aten wishes he could keep it, but realizes the seriousness of their current situation. Instead, he keeps a copy in his cold room, as the foundation for his new project, a complete retelling of the War in Heaven.

"No to the aquisitions tests, you'll typically only be allowed to make one every week in game time."

Indeed the book is of such a fine quality that were it not going into the hands of a pirate it'd be worth millions to the right individuals. With the novel complete it is delivered to Borges and she overwhelmingly is thrilled by its contents. She gives you total access to her library for as long as you remain in good/decent standing with her. Aten can't help but feel as though giving this book to a murderous madman could very well be a tremendous mistake.

Bored of the ship and Firsa's frailty slowing down the journey, Dubshredda takes a hundred and some boyz to carouse in the bars and debauched dens that fill the street-corridors of the station.

"Firsa spends at least the next five days combing through Borges' library. She politely asks if any more of her company are allowed in, knowing that Aten especially will greatly help the research effort. She can tell that her crew are getting antsy to leave, so she'll only stay longer if she feels like she's on the verge of a breakthrough."

Aten spends these five days meeting with the new individuals that Captain Borges has sent to the Tanurom. They may not like him, but he is determined that they will respect him. After all, they will have to spend quite some time together.

Dubshredda and his boyz paroose the stalls and wares of the markets on the station. While he is wandering about one of his more perceptive boyz comes up to him and says he spotted someone with the same hat as yours at a table in a nearby bar.

Indeed the individuals sent by Borhes to "help" the ships running arrived a few days ago. Among them was the Navigator Quintilus, the Astrpath Frecka, their retainers, and about five hundred men led by the friendly kroot you met earlier who's name is Zan'guish.

As you comb through the books you assemble a collection of tombs you find somewhat interesting. The first among them is one titled "Ciaphus Cain: Hero of the Imperium!" The second has no title but does bear a strange tune of a three headed snake. The third and final is one bearing a familiar name, "Vuloir"

"Remembering that one of the items on Trazyn's list is 500 Vuloir, Firsa elects to study that book more closely."

Dubshredda motions for a couple dozen of his boyz to follow as he investigates the 'umie that has his hat.

[how literate are you Firsa? If you're not able to read gothic well it's going to severely inhibit any attempts to get something out of this book]

The boys gather up behind their boss and you make your way through the crowds to the bar. As you barge in it becomes blatantly obvious that there is a distinctly smaller number of people present than you'd expect. In fact, there's nobody in the bar right now. Strange.

Before you get to thinking too much about it you spot your hat sitting on top of one of the tables in the corner of the bar. Just sitting there. Totally not a trap for you whatsoever. Nope, no trap here.

"You 'dere boy, go git me 'at. Couple of yaz stay back 'ere near da door 'nd da rest o' you fan out 'nd check for sneaky 'tings."

As the boyz move about you eye over at the table the boy is running to. Eager to please his boss, he has missed a fairly obvious wire attached to the hat running along its wooden support in addition to the fact that that is a shrewd and clean replica of your hat. You only have a couple of moments to act before the boy pulls up the hat and pulls on the wire.

Dubshredda springs forward and plainly bisects the unfortunate grunt with his big choppa. With the full force of his swing the grunt's two halves fall to the sides and gush orkish blood across the floor.

All of your boys stop and turn to look at you in unison. The wet halves drop onto their sides with a squish and continue flailing for a couple more moments. You walk over to the hat on the table and follow the wire down to a hole in the floorboards. You quickly and savagely rip the floor boards next to it out Underneath the floor boards is a bomb the size of your head set to explode. you notice that a communicator is sitting right next to the bomb.

Dubshredda first addresses his orks: "I told 'im ta get me ma 'at! Not trip dis bomb! Ya follow orderz or ya get chopped!" and then attempts to diffuse the bomb.

Tristan realizes to his dismay, that Firsa can't read low gothic. Time to ask the new recruits for a big favor.

"Having rested peacefully as Aten wrote his masterpiece, Firsa is finally feeling energetic and spritely again. 'Attention residents of Tanurom, if you consider yourself a leader and a subordinate to Captain Borges, please join me on the bridge. I'd like to brief you on the current state of our mission and give you a tour of the ship.'"

At first the diffusal seems to be going well. Cutting the green wire, then the green wire, then the green wire... But then suddenly Dubshredda's fingers slip and he cuts a red wire on accident. In rapid succession the mechanism to activate the bomb goes off and explodes in Dubshreda's face and blowing out a good portion of the floorboards. As the dust settles and you crawl out of the new hole your boys look at you with questioning glances.

Aten, who is currently with the three new higher ranking individuals, hears this go over the comms. Thinking it possibly best to see what the Captain wants with the three new individuals they all go to the briefing room. When they arrive they take places at the holotable and await the announcement.

This being the first time the navigator and astropath have been seen by the Captain I'll explain their appearances. Quintilus is a rather poor specimen of the Navigator breeding programs amongst humanity (which you know absolutely nothing about). Stooped, frail, and completely hairless, Quintilus' only saving grace is his reliable ability to plot warp routes. His retainers estimate his age at around three hundred and twenty but they have assured you that he is always loyal to his master. In this case, that's Borges. Frecka is a rather troublesome sort. Bearing the same lack of eyes most astropaths have she has taken to wrapping bandages around her head to cover the holes into her skull. unfortunately for her, the wounds from the soul binding never quite healed well and her eyes have continuously been running a yellow bloody puss since then. Her bandages must be changed every hour by her retainers and she is barely able to walk due to the severe neurological damage she has suffered from her work. You have been told she is only thirty -five but she looks as though she were one hundred. Luckily for you, you have been assured she is very competent in her job.

Dubshredda spits chips of wood and metal onto the floor. He scoffs at the fact that bomb as huge as his magnificent head inflicted such minor flesh wounds. Now without the communicator and new-fake-old-hat Dubshredda decides to do his best with the traditional form of ork communication: yelling. "KOMMANDO! 'DAT BOMB WAZ WEAK 'N FEEBLE. IF YA GONNA BOTHA TA MAKE ONE DA SIZE OF ME 'EAD 'DEN IT BETTA PACK A PUNCH!"

With a thud next to you the kommando drops from the ceiling and lands on the wood floor. You notice he doesn't have your hat. With a smile he says "Dat wad a test greenskin. I wantsed at see how cunnin you are. If dat da best ya gots, I don't a know how's well you'll handle the next part."

"Da part wur me boyz clobba you?". As Dubshredda speaks his grunts form their typical bystanders ring.

Not paying any head to the ring of Orkz around him the kommando continues "I've puts bomz in two placez on this sdation herez. Your shipz proves to be easy to sneak ontos. The oder bomz are wheres your hats is. And dats over byz where da big brawlz are happenin'. You aints gots time for both so you'z better picks quick." the last line he can barely contain his excitement on.

"Lissen ta me boyz, clobber dis runt good, real good. Make 'im sleep long 'nd peaceful and drag him onto da ship. Betcha he'll fix 'iz shit bomb 'den. As da boss I'm gonna take da rest of da boyz ta get back me 'at." Dubshredda slams the floor with his choppa signaling the boyz to act on his orders. He eagerly waits to watch kommando be captured.

As the boyz begin to jump at the kommando you see him squeeze his palm. A second later a series of explosions go off in a circle around the kommando knocking the first couple of boyz leaping at him out of the air. Immediately the floor underneath the kommando gives way and he falls through the floor and you lose sight of him. The rest of your boyz stand awestruck and clamor to the edge of the hole now made into the floor. Once you move up, you peer down and see a ten meter drop down into the next floor of the station with numerous people crushed under debris.

"Bah, 'dis kommando will show 'its ugly face again soon 'nuff. Lez go see bout da 'at." Dubshredda and the boyz make for the brawling pits. On route Dubshredda sends a couple grunts to round those in the bars.

Bored out of his necrodermis skull, Aten spends the next dew hours tinkering. He eventually comes up with a simple solution to Frecka's problems. First he makes a chair with attached wheels, so that she is spared the difficult task of walking. Next he gets some goggles with hoses attached to them and ties them to a bag. This should allow the pus to drain, and ease the work inflicted upon Frecka's retainers.

He also creates a cheap wig for Quintilus, although, after his long years without any hair, he creates something that looks more like a mop than any real head of hair.

"'Welcome aboard Tanurom, the star-lit spirit dragon. This will be your new home for what I imagine will be quite some time. I am Captain Firsa Illunivar, granddaughter of Athanwe Illunivar, The Scourger of Serator Prime' (and bane of rogue traders, she thinks but carefully leaves out), and Captain Borges has entrusted you to my care.

I say 'entrusted' because she and I are both fully aware that the 500 soldiers sent as your bodyguard would be wholly inadequate should I ever decide to sick even a fraction of my full force of eldar, necrons, and orcs [oh my!] on you. I mention this not to make a threat, but to make it clear to you that Captain Borges trusts me with your well-being. Similarly, I have trusted Borges by inviting complete strangers into vital roles aboard on my vessel.

With mutual trust comes mutual respect. For this reason, you are to treat my commands as though they came right from the mouth of Borges herself. You will do as I say, not because I want you to, but because Captain Borges wants you to. As long as we remember this, I can assure you that your experience as crew of Tanurom will be a lovely one.

Now, I have something to ask of you, but before I do, I'd like to make you feel more at home. If there's anything I can do to be of service to you, speak now or forever hold your piece. We'll be leaving port soon, and then there will be no turning back.'"